


Frost

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hypothermia, Multi, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan fishes Stiles out of a frozen lake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frost

Cold snaps weren't exactly rare in Beacon Hills, not as close as they sat to the Sierra Nevada. But dropping to 0° Fahrenheit overnight in the middle of October wasn't normal. Stiles had narrowed their possibilities down to four: winter sprites, yetis, some fae thing, or witches that just really liked the cold.

None of that was going to help them now. Stiles' startled yelp was cut off as he dropped into a crack in the frozen lake.

“Get the car,” Ethan ordered, gently shoving Danny in that direction as he took off for the dark hole in the stretch of ice.

He had a brief thought that he could let Stiles die, that one one could really blame him if he 'tried' and just got there too late. Then he shifted into beta form and plunged into the icy water. The water was dark and even with his superior night vision, it was hard to follow Stiles' bubble trial. It was cold but not as old as it would be to human skin.

Finally, he caught a pale flash and lashed out, latching onto Stiles' limp arm, surging for the surface. He broke through gasping for breath. Stiles was slumped against him, quiet and still. Using his legs to keep them afloat, he stuck one hand up Stiles' shirt over his heart, and used his healing to give it a jump. Stiles arched, flailing, then vomited dark water. Then he went limp against Ethan, gasping for air.

“I know,” he said, panting, and Ethan went cold in a way that had nothing to do with treading frozen water. “I know where they're at.”

Ethan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “That's nice but it'll have to wait until you're not hypothermic.”

“Cross Street and Vine,” Stiles murmured and Ethan realized he was becoming insensible. 

“Okay, Stiles,” Ethan said gently, trying to push a little more healing into Stiles as he started to swim for the edges of the lake. It rebounded on him and he swore under his breath. He could fix a lot of things but the cold wasn't one of them.

“Cross and Vine,” Stiles kept muttering, body limp.

Ethan was relieved to feel ice under his fingers and shifted them to claws to help pull them out. Hands tugged at his shirt as he hauled himself and Stiles up onto the solid ice. He flopped onto his back, Stiles laying on his chest, and stared up at Danny. Werewolves couldn't, technically, catch hypothermia, but extended exposure still make them weak.

“Come on,” Danny said urgently, grabbing Stiles under the arms to haul him off. “Damn, he's frozen.”

Danny’s hands were gentle, face worried, as he manhandled Stiles up into his arms and that was why Ethan had contemplated, even for a few mere seconds, about letting Stiles die. There was an undercurrent of _something_ , deep yet unacknowledged, that ran between Danny and Stiles and it made him unbearably jealous. Ethan hated it, being jealous. It wasn't an emotion that came natural to him.

“Come _on_ ,” Danny said, still standing there waiting for him to get up and Ethan blinked.

He levered himself up off the ice and stumbled after Danny as he quickly led him back to the SUV. He popped the back hatch and slid Stiles inside with a grunt, turning to shove Ethan in beside him before crawling in, too. It was baking inside and Ethan was racked with shivers as his cool skin tried to heat quickly.

“Out of your clothes,” Danny commanded and Ethan started fumbling with his buttons before his mind caught up with him. Danny started stripping Stiles and Ethan might have been jealous of that, except Stiles had gone still, again, and kind of blue. Danny hissed as the cold water seeped into the knees of his jeans, yanking at clinging clothe. 

“Is he ok-kay,” he stumbled, teeth starting to chatter. 

“No,” Danny said solemnly as he started to scrub at Stiles' skin with a beach towel that had probably been in the car since summer. “No, something's wrong. Was he breathing in the lake?”

“Yeah, when I got him to the surface,” Ethan said, sighing as his werewolf healing kicked in and the stiffness left his joints, his skin heating up to normal temperatures. “He told me that they were at Cross Street and Vine.”

“Fucking emissary powers,” Danny hissed, trying to bundle Stiles into a blanket. It didn't really seem to be helping, if the paleness of Stiles' face was anything to go by. He glanced at Ethan, then motioned him closer. “You're warm again?”

“Yeah,” Ethan nodded, drawing his hand down Danny's cheek just because he could. 

There was a hint of dimple before it vanished into a frown. “Lie down beside him.”

Ethan's eyebrows rose. “Really?”

Danny gave him one of those unimpressed looks that actually made Ethan want to meet Jackson Whittemore because Stiles had told him more than once that that was where he'd learned it. “You're naked, you put off nearly twice the heat that I do, and if his heart stops beating, you can do something about it. I'm going to be driving.”

It was hard to argue with that, so he laid down beside Stiles and only hissed a little when Danny rolled Stiles on top of him. It might have been awkward or intimate if Stiles weren't unnaturally still and chilled to the bone. As it was, it was just uncomfortable. Danny tucked the blankets around them until Ethan felt like a giant burrito, then disappeared over the seat, presumably to get to the front.

Ethan couldn't just lie there, waiting for Danny to get them wherever he was going, so he started chafing Stiles' arms, his back, even tucking his feet around his. The first shiver a shocking relief.

“Stiles? Stiles, can you hear me?” Ethan murmured, trying to see his face.

“What's going on?” Danny called, sounding worried.

“He's shivering,” Ethan said, loud enough for him to hear. Danny sighed in relief even as Stiles flinched a little and Ethan ran a hand over his head. “Sorry. It's okay.”

“Cross and Vine,” Stiles murmured back, agitated.

He covered Stiles' ears and said, “Hey, can you call somebody and tell them to look into Cross and Vine? He's not letting it go.”

“Yeah, I’m already on the line with Ms. McCall. She says shivering is good. And Deaton wants us to bring Stiles to the clinic,” Danny said, then started to talk to Ms. McCall.

“Of course he does,” Ethan muttered, still trying to leech as much of the cold out of Stiles as he could. No one really trusted Deaton, but he was the only one that seemed to know what was going on at any given time.

“Cross Street and Vine,” Stiles muttered and Ethan rolled his eyes. “Hoarfrost.”

“He said something about hoarfrost,” Ethan recounted and heard Danny repeat him. 

He heard the minor explosion of voices from the other end of the line but he was more concerned with the shivers that were overtaking Stiles. He bundled him in tight to keep him from bucking himself off and winced a little as Stiles wiggled his hands under his back. They were like ice and now that Ethan was mostly warm again, it felt terrible.

“This is awkward,” Stiles grumbled while trying to burrow deeper against Ethan. He was still trembling but not nearly as bad as he had been. 

“Could be worse,” Ethan said, trying to be reassuring. “I could be Aiden.”

Stiles laughed, then coughed until he choked, rolling away so he could vomit up more murky water.

“Guys?” Danny said, sounding panicked.

“You might want to tell them to hurry up with the hoarfrost thing,” Ethan said grimly, tugging Stiles back in to lay on top of him. He listened to his raspy breathing and felt him grow listless. No way was that normal.

When they finally pulled up in front of the clinic, Stiles' skin was burning up but he was still shivering and throwing up every so often. Ethan had managed to pull on a dry pair of sweats from Danny's gym bag, so at least he wasn't totally naked when Scott threw open the door in a panic. Ethan snarled at him, throwing the blanket up over Stiles' head to keep him warm on the short trek to the building.

Deaton had him lay him on an exam table, Ms. McCall hovering nearby, ready to help. Deaton pointed and said, “Everybody else, out.”

Scott whined but Deaton just jabbed his finger at the door again and Scott went. Ethan took a last look, wincing at the blue tinge that was creeping its way back into Stiles' face, and left. Danny was sitting in the waiting area, wringing his hands, and Ethan should have been a good boyfriend and sat beside him, tried to sooth him. But he couldn't, couldn't help but feel like he was supposed be behind the doors with Stiles, so he paced instead. Scott muttered something about going to help Aiden, Lydia, and Allison and left.

“Does this mean you're going to stop looking at Stiles like you could rip his head off every time he touches me?” Danny asked, watching him steadily. Ethan went still and Danny rolled his eyes. “I've noticed. He's noticed, too, but Stiles likes to poke people that could kill him with sticks.”

“You watch him,” Ethan said defensively. “The same way he watches you.”

Danny stopped, then shrugged. “He offered to let me deflower him once. I didn't take him up on it. Sometimes I think about it.” That should have made him angry, should have sent the jealousy through the roof. Instead, it made him hot and Danny smirked at him, like he knew exactly where his mind had gone. Danny reached out and snagged him by the waistband of his sweats, pulling him in between his legs until he could press a kiss to Ethan's abs. “That is the look of a man that just had a very good thought.”

“He can't still be a virgin,” Ethan said, shrugging. Not that the virgin thing was what really did it for him. Just Danny and Stiles, tangled together. It made him lose the plot a little.

“Mmm,” Danny said, running his thumbs along the cut of his hips. “Maybe not. But I think he probably is. Everybody who comes close either dies or can't get through Scott.”

Ethan got a little hard because Danny was touching him while he was thinking about Stiles and he set his finger into Danny's dimple, pressing until he smiled and it deepened. “I bet we could get through Scott.”

Danny looked up at him from under his lashes, still smiling. “I bet Scott wouldn't even see us coming.”

Ethan stepped back because he heard someone coming towards the waiting room. He turned to look at the door of the exam room, willing away his boner as Ms. McCall pushed the door open, looking terribly worried.

“His skin has gotten cold again,” she said, waving her hands. “The heat's up as far as it'll go and he's wrapped in heat blankets and he's still getting colder. I don't know what you did to heat him up, but could you...?”

Ethan nodded, hurrying for the door. Stiles had gone gray blue in their absence and Ethan winced at the sight. Deaton nodded at him, lips pinched, and Ethan scooped Stiles up, blankets and all, and looked for a place to sit. He shrugged and headed for Deaton's office, for the leather couch that was pushed up against the wall in there. He paused before sitting down, pulling at the leg of his pants with his toes until they slid over his hips and off, and he smiled at Ms. McCall's soft, “Ohh!”

He sat, pulling open the blankets and nudging until Stiles was flush against his skin and let Danny tuck all the blankets around them. Stiles started to shiver almost immediately and Ethan looked to the doorway, saw that Ms. McCall was missing and Deaton's nod of approval before he turned to leave.

Danny sat on the edge of the couch, rubbing Stiles' head through the blanket. “You're not allowed to die yet, Stilinski. I've just gotten my boyfriend to agree to sleep you.”

Ethan felt Stiles' smile against his neck even as he rolled his eyes at Danny. “Yeah, that's great incentive. Don't die a virgin.”

Stiles laughed, then went stiff against him. Ethan helped him shove the blankets out of the way and lean over to throw up more dark water onto the floor. Deaton hurried in as Ethan was stuffing Stiles back under the blankets, helping him wipe his mouth with a corner before covering his head again. Deaton looked at the mess on the floor grimly, leaving only to return with gloves on and a swab. He left with a look back that had Ethan's nerves jangling.

“So you should stay still and quiet,” Danny said lightly, face pinched in worry as Ms. McCall swept in to clean up the mess. She had a mask pulled up over her face and gloves on and Ethan was pretty sure Deaton had asked her to take the precautions. “Although I’m not sure that stuff isn't better out than in.”

Stiles just breathed against him, listless again. Ethan ran his hands over every inch of him, heating skin as he went. He tried to push a little healing, but whatever was wrong blocked him again. Ethan bared his teeth in a silent snarl and Danny rubbed his knuckles against his cheek, holding a finger to his lips to keep him quiet. He calmed down when Stiles icy fingers wormed under his back, kneading into skin.

Ethan kept pushing the healing until he felt it give and Stiles sucked in a deep breath, skin rapidly warming.

“I think they killed it,” he told Danny, who looked relieved, reaching out to set a hand over his under the blanket for a second before going to the doorway to speak with Deaton and Ms. McCall.

Ms. McCall came bustling, stethoscope around her neck. “Stiles, can you sit up?”

“No,” he said grumpily into Ethan's chest, rubbing his nose against it to warm it, and Ethan smiled as Ms. McCall rolled her eyes.

“Already feeling better, I see,” she said, kneeling down to dig under the covers until she could press the metal end to Stiles' back. He yelped at the cold, pushing into Ethan and away from it. She refused to let him wiggle away, saying, “Breath for me and I’ll leave.”

He drew in a few hasty deep breaths and Ms. McCall nodded, pulling away. She set a hand on his head over the blanket. “I think you'll be okay, but I want you to see your doctor tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Stiles murmured, groping around until he could squeeze her wrist. Then he retreated back into his blanket burrow, letting Ethan haul him closer.

She shook her head, but left them be.

Stiles squirmed a little, hands starting to wander. “So what was this about not dying a virgin?”

“Let's wait until I’m sure you won't throw up on my dick, then I’ll tell you,” Ethan said, capturing both of Stiles' hands in his.

Stiles laughed loudly, pliant against him, and Ethan grinned at Danny, who winked back at him. Yeah, this could work.


End file.
